Chapter 66 – Gaining fluency

After having burned a pot of rice, Li Man didn’t dare to allow her thoughts to wander again as she cooked. Once the pot of fish with pickled cabbage was finished cooking, it had delicious flavor and aroma.

After lunch, Li Mo took out the family’s hoes, sickles, and shovels and sharpened them. Then, he took Li Yan and Li Shu to the fields with him.

Li Hua remained at home to study in the eastern hut.

Li Man pulled Little Five to a corner of the courtyard and picked up a branch to write and draw. She was doing her best to learn this old dialect from Little Five. She had taken out the same zeal she had when she was studying for her college English fluency exam. She was determined to learn this old dialect to a level where she could speak fluently within a month.

Actually, learning an old Chinese dialect was much easier that learning a foreign language. She didn’t need to learn new grammar or the spelling of new words. She just needed to remember the different pronunciation. In addition, she had quickly grasped the key differences in speech pattern of this old dialect. The flat tone sounds like z, c, and c weren’t as distinct, and the tone for the last syllable would usually rise.

Right now, Li Man was like her college self when she would look for foreigners to practice speaking English. Every afternoon, she would dedicate her time to chatting with Little Five. At the end of their practice today, she even told him the fable about the race between the tortoise and the hare in the old dialect. She was extremely happy when Little Five was able to understand her completely.

In the past days, before she started cooking dinner, Li Man would point at the brown rice, white rice, cornmeal, and other items and recite the words for them.

Since she had cooked a lot of fish with pickled cabbage for lunch, she had set aside a large bowl of it for dinner. For today’s dinner, she decided that she would warm up the remaining fish and pickled cabbage and cook knife-cut noodles. Once the cooking fire was started, she pointed at the firewood, fire tongs, and the wood pile and named each of the items aloud in front of Little Five.

Once the noodles were cooked, as she was taking the noodles out of the pot, she didn’t forget to point out at the bowls, chopsticks, and other items, name each of those items, and check with Little Five that she had pronounced those words correctly.

Little Five thought that although Li Man’s pronunciation wasn’t very accurate, he could still understand what she was trying to say. Besides, her voice was very pleasant to hear. When she was trying to speak the local dialect, the clumsiness of her pronunciation sounded cute. He liked to listen to her speak. And so, when Li Man tirelessly asked him if she was speaking each word correctly, he would patiently answer her.

The other members in the family also thought that this phenomenon was good. If their wife was willing to learn the local dialect, it meant that she had accepted them and wanted to be part of their family. As a result, they became more encouraged too. One after another, they would take the initiative to search out Li Man to chat. They hope that she would gain fluency sooner.

And so, after dinner was over, none of the men were willing to leave the kitchen. They remained seated at the table to talk with Li Man.

At the end, it was Li Man that couldn’t outlast them. Yawning, she said that she was going to bed, and the men departed the kitchen one after another.

After Li Man had boiled water and wash up with it, the men also washed up before going to their bed too.

After working hard all day, everyone was feeling a bit tired. Once they got into their beds, they didn’t chat any further, and most of them fell straight asleep instead.

Li Mo had originally been feeling quite tired from working the fields with his two younger brothers this afternoon. However, although his body was exhausted, his mind felt especially awake once he lied down. He recalled the words that his second brother had said before lunchtime and Li Man’s silhouette snuck into the forefront of his mind without him noticing.

On that day, when he had rescued Li Man from being hanged on that tree, Li Man’s had looked so helpless and pitiful. It made him feel so distressed for her.

This was the first time that Li Mo had a difficult time falling asleep. He tossed and turned –

A beautiful and delicate woman was kneading dough by the stove. Her sleeves were rolled up high, and her snow-white arms were exposed. Seeing him enter the kitchen, her lips curved up into a bashful smile. “What are you looking at?”

A ripple went through his heart. He wanted to say, “You’re so beautiful.” But, he lost his nerve and lowered his head instead. He didn’t dare to keep looking at her.

But, she stretched her hand out and stopped him from leaving. She leaned closer to his face and softy called out, “Hubby.”